Introduction to the four core browsers

at present, there are four kinds of web browser cores from four different organizations in the world. Each organization has at least one browser product that uses its own kernel.

The four organizations are Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, and opera SAS, with the kernel being called Trident, Gecko, WebKit and Presto, with the launch of the main browser called the Internet, respectively. Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and opera.

people often use the name of the main browser instead of the kernel name, especially for non-open source Trident and Presto, almost everyone calls "ie kernel" and "opera kernel". The market share of the kernel

Although claimed to be the four core, but in the market share, we still have a significant difference.

As of November 2007, the market share of the four core markets is as follows: IE accounts for about 77.35%, mainly IE 6.0 (40.24%) and IE 7.0 (36.84%) Gecko accounts for about 16.01%, mostly Firefox 2.0 webkit accounts for about 5.14%, mainly Safari 3.0 opera accounts for about 0.65%, mainly opera 9.X

The rest of the market share, and a large part of these kernels are the earlier version and the embedded version.

however, in different regions of the world, the specific situation, and the average can be very large. In the case of the Gecko kernel, the share in Europe is much higher than the average (nearly 30%), while in mainland China it is much lower than the average (about 2% for long-term users, if it is credited to occasional users, about 8%). trident/ie Kernel

Trident is Microsoft's flagship browser kernel since 1997. The first product to use the kernel is IE 4.0. The current stable version is the Trident V used by IE 7.

the Trident kernel and its predecessor have created many functional aspects of the world record. Pioneered the support of a number of web standards, and introduced a number of later widely accepted extensions. However, the degree of completeness of the standard support and the completeness of the extended design have not been high.

The core of the Trident series is the first in the world to support CSS 1. This makes it possible for the first time to achieve the separation of the structure and style of a page. However, until 2001, ie 6.0,trident to some CSS 1 property support is defective, and until 2006 when the introduction of IE 7.0 was completed the correction. IE 7 in the Trident V still does not support CSS 2, but the launch time has not been determined the support of IE 8 has been more complete.

The Trident series of cores supported Dom 1 in the world first. This makes it possible for the first time to dynamically modify the Document object model with JavaScript and then see the dynamic changes in the page in real time. However, since then, the level of support for DOM standards has not improved significantly, and is now the world's worst DOM support for the main kernel. In particular, the event model in Dom 2 is not supported at all.

Trident is also the first browser kernel in the world to support XMLHttpRequest. This makes it possible for the first time in the page to use scripts to implement background data transfer. This extension was later emulated by all the major kernels. Plays an important role in modern web applications.

Trident is also the first browser kernel in the world to support "editable content". This makes it possible for the first time to dynamically edit an area in a mainstream browser and then get the HTML data that represents the area. This extension is also digested and absorbed by all the main cores. However, the HTML code generated by IE is not elegant enough, while the other implementations make some adjustments, and the results are clear.

2001 years later, the development of the Trident kernel stalled for a long time. Therefore, the support for XHTML, CSS 2.1, MathML, SVG, Dom 2, Dom 3 and other standards is far less than the other three. The development of CSS 3, ECMAScript 4, and HTML 5 did not show much enthusiasm.

Trident only the version on the Windows platform. Another kernel named Tasman was used in the Mac version of IE (discontinued) and the Mac version of Office (continued development). Gecko/firefox Kernel

Gecko is the browser kernel that Mozilla has been pushing since 1998. The most famous product to use this kernel is Firefox. The latest stable version is the gecko 1.8 used by Firefox 2.

Gecko is an open source product that is currently published based on the MPL/LGPL/GPL triple license.

at the beginning of 1998, because the historical burden is too heavy, not in time to join the full support of CSS and DOM, Netscape Navigator "browser market monopoly" status by IE serious threat. At this point, their decision-makers decided to try out the next product development using the market model that was just famous. They named the idea the Mozilla program.

The attempt was not successful at first. Because the historical burden was too heavy, the entire development team decided to make a large-scale rewrite of the existing source code. The rewrite took several years. During this time, Netscape has not been a new kernel available, so had to look at IE 4.0, 5.0, 5.5 has been published, and then 1.1 points of robbed own market share. This is often referred to as "anyway, do not rewrite the existing product-level code" evidence.

Gecko is an important product of this rewrite. The first gecko kernel-based browser with a roughly passing function and stability was born in Mozilla Suite 0.8 in February 2001. In June 2002, after about 1.5, Mozilla Suite released its official version of 1.0. But this time, ie has eaten almost all of the market. Mozilla Suite has since evolved, but has not had any impact on the market. If not later someone made the same Firefox based on the Gecko kernel, and then in the market, a big hit, 16% market share, and achieved a $ tens of millions of a year, the entire Mozilla program can almost be regarded as a failure.

after a hard rewrite, the gecko kernel has good compatibility with modern web standards. Good support for HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, DOM 0/1/2, JavaScript. And the first support for the expression of the mathematical formula MathML and the expression vector graphics svg. In terms of expansion, there are also learning from IE's XMLHttpRequest (has been a draft of the revenue standard), the WebKit canvas 2D (has been the draft of the revenue standard), the storage API from WHATWG (has been the Revenue standard draft), Self-created XBL (in subsequent versions of normalization) and limited "editable content". In Gecko 1.9, which is in beta, the ability to "edit content" has been enhanced, and Canvas 3D is being tested.

The most important world record for the Gecko kernel and its predecessor was the earliest implementation of JavaScript. Without this technology, browser-side programming is irrelevant.

Gecko works well on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. There are also porting versions on a variety of other Unix. Webkit/safari Kernel

WebKit is the kernel of the Safari browser launched by Apple. Safari is the default browser on Mac OS X, and there are versions of Windows that are appropriate for XP.

WebKit, like Gecko, is an open-source product that was born in Mozilla's most bleak time, based on the BSD-like license.

WebKit Core is fast, the support of the standard is also strong, the resources are not occupied, is a very unique browser kernel. Presto/opera Kernel

Opera SAS has been operating for many years as a browser that was originally known for its small size and is now a fast-moving one. Presto is currently the name of Opera's kernel.

Although opera is not a big influence in the desktop world, the embedded version has a good reputation.

Presto's strengths are similar to those of WebKit, and are a good performance in terms of speed, standard support and resource occupancy. Mobile Device Market

Many mobile electronic devices also have built-in access to the Web. But globally, the total market share for various browsers used in mobile devices is currently less than 1%.

Many people and organizations believe that the mobile Internet-related industries will have a large market size in the future, so a great deal of effort has been made to make a lot of efforts early. But from the current consumer behavior, these attempts have not been very successful.